Interesting take. I've been in the indie hacker scene for a while and I've noticed the same trend. The "build in public" movement has definitely become oversaturated.
While transparency can be valuable, I agree that many are overdoing it, especially with revenue posts. It often feels like peacocking rather than genuine sharing of insights.
I think the key is to focus on providing actual value to your audience. Instead of just posting numbers, share the strategies that led to those numbers, or the challenges you faced along the way. That's much more useful for other founders.
I have a canvas library which was in serious need of a community. One of the things I tried to find that community was joining the indie hackers website - I mean, building in public is the sort of thing I'm already doing with my library's public GitHub repos yes?
I made an intro post and started to setup a profile. On the profile page it says: "Create a founder profile to show off your products, your revenue, and your most ambitious goals and ideas" ... and that's when I realised this wasn't what I wanted. I'm not a founder; I don't have a product to sell. Everybody on the site is shouting about how many customers they've got and how they've cleared their first $100k - but I couldn't see anyone keen to discuss the intricacies of coding up a 2d canvas filter.
So my library still doesn't have a community of people who want to discuss all things 2D canvas. It would be nice if I could find such a community (not on Reddit), or build one, but I'm glad I decided not to hustle with all the rest of the indie hacker crowd building stuff in public.
The problem with these places is they attract grifter-types who trainwreck the discussion because they are are focused more on taking than giving. Instead of talking about how they can serve their customers well, it’s all about them.
While transparency can be valuable, I agree that many are overdoing it, especially with revenue posts. It often feels like peacocking rather than genuine sharing of insights.
I think the key is to focus on providing actual value to your audience. Instead of just posting numbers, share the strategies that led to those numbers, or the challenges you faced along the way. That's much more useful for other founders.